“I just had to make sure I didn’t put them in a situation where they were too tired to close,” Drew said.

So he played his bench. Liberally, especially with a couple of his starters in early foul trouble. The Bears’ substitutes responded – and, in the end, so did their superiors in Baylor’s gripping 72-68 victory before 10,407 fans in the Ferrell Center.

“Their bench was just better than our bench,” said Aggies coach Mark Turgeon, whose reserves were outscored 22-5 by Baylor’s subs. “That was the story of the game.”

Or at least it led to the thrilling conclusion, when Baylor guard Curtis Jerrells dribbled past A&M forward Bryan Davis for a layup that lifted the Bears (16-9 overall, 4-7 Big 12) to the final score with 11 seconds remaining.

Jerrells had elected to keep the ball instead of firing a pass to fellow guard Henry Dugat. The Aggies had switched defensively on the play following a screen by Baylor forward Kevin Rogers.

“You can’t give up a layup in a two-point game,” Turgeon said. “You’ve got to make them shoot a jump shot over a hand. We didn’t do that.”

The Aggies (17-8, 3-7) had scratched back into the contest after trailing by 14 points early in the second half. The hot hand of Baylor forward Anthony Jones, a freshman from Yates High, helped spring the Bears to the early lead. Jones, who hadn’t touched the court in Baylor’s three previous games, took advantage of Rogers’ and Quincy Acy’s early foul trouble.

Jones, who chose the Bears over the Aggies a year ago in a heated recruiting fight, hit 2-of-4 3-pointers in the first half, and 3 of 5 for the game in scoring 12 points – one of four Baylor players to score at least that many.

Added Jones: “The seniors have told me to keep my head up because my time will come. Tonight was the night.”

The Bears snapped a six-game losing streak in their long-shot quest to make a second consecutive NCAA tournament. The Aggies are swamped in a three-game losing skid and their chances of making a fourth consecutive NCAA postseason are in serious jeopardy.

“We’re not going to think it’s over until it’s over,” said A&M guard Josh Carter, who scored a game-high 20 points. “We feel like we can go on a 6-0 run and we’ve still got the Big 12 tournament. We’re still aiming for the NCAA tournament.”

So are the Bears, who played second-ranked Oklahoma close for most of Wednesday in an eventual 15-point loss, and who shot 56 percent – best by an A&M league opponent this season – in finally snapping the slide.

“You try not to listen to all of the talk about the six-game losing streak,” Jerrells said. “You just try to focus on the next game in front of you. That’s what we did.”

The Aggies’ next game comes quickly, when they play host to rival Texas on Monday night. The Bears don’t play again until Saturday, when they travel to Oklahoma State.